


Mabel's Journals

by MiniatureGlitterSoul



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Gen, Headcanon, I have a lot of emotions about her, Mabel is sad, The Journals (Gravity Falls), how kids cope with emotional trauma, this is mostly about Mabel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 22:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6539395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiniatureGlitterSoul/pseuds/MiniatureGlitterSoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After her disastrous sock-puppet opera, Mabel Pines takes a new interest in the Journal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mabel's Journals

**Author's Note:**

> This stems from the fact that Mabel had no idea Dipper had been possessed by Bill in Sock Opera until Dipper (as a sock) outright told her–-and I kept thinking about how that would make her feel. I mean, her own twin had been taken over by a triangle demon, and she didn’t even notice. I feel like that would mess any sister up–-especially one who cares so much about her family.
> 
> So, enjoy this very angsty and emotional little thing filled with ways I think Mabel would cope with/cover up her own emotions.

Mabel never fell asleep before Dipper anymore. She pretended to, sometimes, so he wouldn’t get suspicious, but as soon as she heard him snoring softly on the other side of the room she would slide out of bed, gently lift the Journal and his flashlight from the bedside table, then climb back into bed and pull the blankets up over her head, reading until she was too tired to keep her eyes open anymore. 

She whipped up a fresh batch of Mabeljuice every morning.

But she wasn’t just  _reading_  late at night–-she was  _memorizing_. She had always been good at remembering things-–birthdays, favorite colors, sweater sizes–-so memorization came easily to her. She liked to think of her brain as a scrapbook, with pictures and stickers and glittery writing holding in all the important information. But now her scrapbook was getting a new, less sparkly addition. ( _Or maybe I should just think of it as an entirely separate book…?_ ) It had started off with just a few pages at first-–just the ones dedicated to Bill-–but soon she realized that there were hints of the pointy jerk hidden all over the place, so she started memorizing other pages. Finally she just shrugged her shoulders and figured, “What the hay? Might as well memorize the whole thing!” So she did. It took a while, but by the time their new Grunkle came tumbling out of that portal in the basement, she had every page copied into her mental scrapbook. 

So  _obviously_  she had to memorize the other journals, too. 

It was harder to memorize Journals 1 and 2, mostly because it was hard to get her hands on them. Dipper or Grunkle Ford always seemed to be hanging onto them, like they were afraid somebody might steal them or something. But Mabel was able to get the Journals a few times-–like that time Dipper fell asleep with Journal 2 (she took a picture of him first, cuddling it like a teddy bear), or that time with the unicorns, or even that time she had slipped out of the kitchen with Journal 1 under her sweater without Grunkle Ford noticing. It was in those moments that she read as fast as she could, while still processing the information. It was harder, and she knew that she was making more mistakes, but she made sure that the most important information (aka  _anything about Bill_ ) was perfect.

So she should have known that Blendin was possessed. She should have seen the signs–-spotted the signals–-known that an eternal summer was too good to be true ( _not to mention impossible!_ ). She should have known, upon waking in the world of her dreams, that it was all a trap-–that having all her summer crushes in one place was actually outrageous. And maybe she did know. Maybe there was some little voice in the back of her head that knew-–but she had chosen to ignore it. She couldn’t really remember what she’d  _thought_  while she was stuck in her own little world. Everything was just sort of a…super colorful blur with techno music. All she remembered was wanting it to go on forever and being afraid that the bubble would suddenly pop, letting reality in. But she didn’t remember these things as  _thoughts-_ –she remembered them as  _feelings-_ –happiness followed by a deep, intense fear of letting go.

Maybe that’s why she hadn’t seen through it. She had been all heart there, and the Journals were stored in her brain. She hadn’t been able to stop Bill because she hadn’t been able to  _see_  him because she’d been so inside her  _heart_  and retreating from her  _head_. 

She made a vow to herself that she would look over the Journals again-–she would learn them by  _heart_  this time. But when she (very casually) asked Dipper about them after Weirdmaggedon, his face darkened.

“Bill destroyed them,” he mumbled.

“What?” Mabel said, unable to hide her shock–-but hoping to hide her desperation.

“Yeah… But I guess we could probably write our own journals now, huh?” Dipper grinned. His eyes were still sad, but Mabel picked up his cue and smiled back.

“I guess we could,” she said. “But maybe with more stickers.”

“Ha, why not?” Dipper laughed and turned away, distracted by Soos tugging on his shirtsleeve.

Mabel’s smile faded and she played with the hem of her sweater. The Journals were gone… How could she learn them by heart now? How could she make sure none of this ever happened again? Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford kept telling her that Bill was gone–-gone forever-–but their reassurances didn’t make her fears go away. 

Their reassurances didn’t pull the rift out of Blendin’s–- _Bill’s_ –-hands.

Their reassurances didn’t undo the fact that Bill had possessed her brother and she  _hadn’t even noticed_.

She never noticed. But she  _had_  to notice. She had to pay more attention.

_I have to learn them by heart._

* * *

Mabel never fell asleep before Dipper, and now that they were back home she didn’t even have to pretend to be asleep, because they were back in their separate rooms across the hall from each other. She would stay up late, writing anything she could remember from Grunkle Ford’s Journals. She started with Journal 3, the one she knew the best, and she was actually surprised with how quickly she finished it. She knew her pictures didn’t look like his–-her drawings tended to be less scientific and more rough-–and she completely ignored his ciphers and symbols, replacing them with normal English. She wasn’t hiding from anyone, after all.

_I’m not hiding from anyone._

But she did hide the Journals. She kept them in a dresser drawer, under her shooting star sweater (which, for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to put on), and she didn’t tell Dipper about them. She wasn’t sure how he’d react-–and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. She knew they were both traumatized. She heard him cry in his sleep, and every once in a while he’d wake up screaming. Mabel was always awake, and she’d rush into his room and walk him through his surroundings to help calm him down. She’d remind him that they were home now, that Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford were safe, that Bill was dead.

_Bill is dead._

_Bill is dead._

_Bill is dead._

* * *

Mabel hardly slept anymore. She only ever fell asleep by accident–-on the bus to school, at the dinner table, while working on Journal 2… Her nightmares wouldn’t let her sleep for very long anyway, so she worked. She asked Dipper casual questions about the Journals when she couldn’t remember a particular detail, and sometimes she’d call up Grunkle Ford and ask him casual questions, too.  _Source material is better than second-hand information, anyway._

“I didn’t know you were this interested in the supernatural, Mabel,” Grunkle Ford’s garbled voice said from the receiver on her desk. It was some high-powered communication line Grunkle Ford and Old Man McGucket had whipped up before her Grunkles had set sail.

“Oh, yeah…” Mabel said, her voice higher than usual. “I’ve always been interested…kind of… It’s complicated.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re beginning to share in my enthusiasm!” Grunkle Ford laughed.

_You have no idea._

“Isn’t it late there?” Grunkle Ford asked suddenly.

“What?” Mabel asked in return, caught off-guard.

“Well, if I’m counting the time zones correctly…” his voice trailed off into static for a moment. 

Mabel hit the receiver and the sound cleared up.

“It’s three in the morning!” Grunkle Ford exclaimed. “Don’t you have school in the morning? Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“I’m not really tired,” Mabel said–-and it was true, she wasn’t. She’d fallen asleep for a full thirty minutes before calling him.

“Well, I can tell you from experience that staying up this late then having to rise early for school is not healthy,” Grunkle Ford said.

“And he would know!” Grunkle Stan’s voice piped up suddenly. “He hardly slept during our junior year of high school! Three weeks before the year ended, he totally crashed–-Ma was worried he was in some kind of permanent coma or something!”

“It wasn’t that bad, Stanley–-it was only mild sleep deprivation-–”

“Mild my rear-end! You slept for a week and only woke up to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water!”

“Aaaah, now that you mention it…” Mabel faked a yawn. As much as she loved listening to her Grunkles’ voices, she had work to do.

“All right, Mabel, goodnight,” Grunkle Ford said.

“Sleep tight, pumpkin!” Grunkle Stan added.

“I love you both,” Mabel said.

“We love you too,” they said in unison.

Mabel smiled and reached to turn off the receiver-–

“And, Mabel-–” Grunkle Stan’s voice began quickly.

She paused with her hand hanging in midair.

“If there’s anything wrong… Or not wrong-–just, different… Look, you can talk to us, okay? Like…really talk, okay? We don’t want you to have to go through anything alone-–okay?” his voice sounded so sincere that it was almost desperate.

_How does he always know?_

Mabel blinked hard and swallowed. Her chest felt tight.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, wishing her voice wasn’t so soft now. “Goodnight.”

“Goodni-–”

She turned the receiver off and sat back in her chair. She took in a deep breath then let it out slowly. There was a lot she wanted to tell them-–but she knew that if she started talking, she wouldn’t be able to stop crying, and it was really hard to talk and cry at the same time. And she didn’t want to worry them. She didn’t want them to make an emergency trip to California just because they were worried about her.

She flipped open her mostly-finished copy of Journal 2. She picked up her purple pen. She wiped at her eyes. She began to write.

_When dealing with an angry Inkling, it is best to begin a chant…_


End file.
